News Releases

ITHACA, NY — Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Susan Faludi — whose most recent book exposed media fantasy and fear in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — will present “9/11: Myth, Media and Gender” at Ithaca College on Monday, Sept. 19. Scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Emerson Suites, Phillips Hall, her talk is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Park Center for Independent Media.

Faludi first came to prominence with the 1991 publication of “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,” which asserted that the 1980s saw a backlash against feminism, especially due to the spread of negative stereotypes against career-minded women. “Backlash” won the National Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction, and Faludi appeared on the cover of “Time” magazine alongside Gloria Steinem as a national “spokesperson” on women’s rights and the future of feminism.

In 1999, Faludi turned her sights on masculinity with “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man,” arguing that even in the world they supposedly own and run, men are at the mercy of cultural forces that disfigure their lives and undermine their chance at happiness.

Faludi’s most recent book, “The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America,” examined the U.S. media’s response to the 9/11 attacks. Taking a historical view, she claimed that American culture has generated a myth of cowboy swagger and feminine frailty to overcome the insecurity the nation suffers whenever it feels threatened.

While a reporter at the “Wall St. Journal,” Faludi was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991 for her coverage of the leveraged buy-out of Safeway Stores that revealed the human costs of high finance. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including “The New Yorker,” “The Nation,” “Harper’s” and “Ms.”

Based in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College, the Park Center for Independent Media was launched in 2008 as a national center for the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems. For more information, visit www.ithaca.edu/indy or contact Jeff Cohen, director of the center, at jcohen@ithaca.edu.